Scope and Content Note
The papers of Charles Joseph Bonaparte (1851-1921) span the years 1760 to 1921, with the bulk of the material from 1874-1921.
The collection contains incoming and outgoing correspondence, including from his service as secretary of the navy and attorney general. There are nearly matching groups of letters received and outgoing letters. The only appreciable gap appears in outgoing letters of general correspondence after 1916.
The Subject File and several correspondence series relate to Bonaparte's Progressive Party and Republican Party political activities, his cabinet posts under President Theodore Roosevelt, and his positions as member and chairman of council of the National Civil Service Reform League; overseer of Harvard University, 1891-1903; trustee of the Catholic University of America, 1904-1921; president of the Enoch Pratt Free Library; member of the Maryland Board of State Aid and Charities; president of the National Municipal League; and member of the executive committee of the National Civic Federation. A great deal of the material relates directly to Baltimore and Maryland civic, charitable, and political affairs.
Typed or printed copies of the bulk of Bonaparte's speeches and articles are contained in a Speech, Article, and Book File . An index to the speeches indicates the great variety of subject matter included in his public addresses.
A Scrapbooks series derives from Bonaparte's cabinet posts, 1905-1909.
Significant correspondents in addition to Theodore Roosevelt include Louis Dembitz Brandeis, Champ Clark, Richard Henry Dana, Charles William Eliot, James Rudolph Garfield, Elbert H. Gary, James Gibbons, Henry Cabot Lodge (1850-1924), Carl Schurz, William H. Taft, Benjamin R. Tillman, Richard M. Venable, Owen Wister, and Clinton Rogers Woodruff.